These Women

 

On our sojourn in Santa Fe, we stopped in at this Native American Modern Art Gallery to use their facilities to change our babes, relieve ourselves and thaw out for a few moments.  

On our way out we passed a walled garden with various statues in it.  The above statue of a woman was my favorite.  It struck me in the moment and it became an image that I've come back to again and again in the past couple of weeks.

I've often felt like that.  Alone and windblown.  And yet, I've nearly always found myself wrapped up and protected by these women.  My mother.  My sisters.  Whimsy.  Samwise.  Rachael.  My Sarahs.  Emily.  Kristin.  Mary.  Mona.  Debbi.  Brett. Celeste.  These women of extraordinary kindness, of warmth, of patience, and tolerance and courage.  These women who acknowledge that I am not always the nicest girl, but they love me just the same.  These women, who if pressed, would probably admit that I make them crazy, that I exasperate, frustrate and annoy; but they stay with me all the same.

I find myself trying to purge the trappings of friendships, tired and sad and thinking that I'd be better off going my own way.  I let go, I drop off the radar, I don't answer the phone or emails; always assuming that they'll give up and leave me.

And they never do.  For they are wiser than me and they recognize the world for what it is, a cold, hard place that is best served by good friends and warm blankets.

Sometimes we keep in touch better than others.  We confide fears and anxieties and hopes.  We cry on shoulders and laugh ourselves into headaches.  They sit back and let me ramble on and on and they shake it off when I sit in awe and wonder of their creativity and perseverance. 

I'll never understand what I did to deserve so many worthy women in my life.  I question it constantly.  I am humbled and grateful for them.  I struggle for the words to express myself adequately, and when I struggle and stammer and mutter and pull my hair they sit and wait, and sometimes fill in the gaps with their own words.

But as I emerge from on of those restless cycles, I hope that I can wrap them up and shelter them as they have so often sheltered me.  I'm resolving to try to be a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister.